


On Psi Corps Arranged Marriages (Part 1)

by pallasite



Series: Behind the Gloves [110]
Category: Babylon 5, Babylon 5 & Related Fandoms
Genre: Arranged Marriage, Backstory, Canon Compliant, Essays, Fix-It, Gen, How canon misled you, Psi Corps, Telepath culture, Worldbuilding, telepaths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2019-04-26 18:55:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14408412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pallasite/pseuds/pallasite
Summary: The first part of a comprehensive essay on marriage in the Corps.The prologue ofBehind the Glovesishere- please read!





	On Psi Corps Arranged Marriages (Part 1)

**Author's Note:**

> What is this series? Where are the acknowledgements, table of contents and universe timelines? See [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10184558/chapters/22620590).
> 
> If you like _Behind the Gloves_ and would like to send me an email, I can be reached at counterintuitive at protonmail dot com. Do you have questions? Would you like to tell me what you like about this project? Email me!
> 
> I also have an [ask blog](https://behind-the-gloves.tumblr.com/), a [writing blog](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/pallasite-writes), and a "P3 life" Tumblr [here](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/p3-life) with funny anecdotes. :)

One point of tremendous misunderstanding and confusion in fandom concerns marriage practices in the Corps, and arranged marriages especially.

As this topic is long, I am splitting it up into several separate essays.

Before I dive in, I must first disabuse you of the notion that arranged marriages in the Corps are what you think they are - and as frequent as you think they are. While arranged marriages do take place - among consenting adults - many telepaths do not have arranged marriages, and many do not marry at all. _No one in the Corps is ever forced to marry_.

There are five recurring telepath characters in the show, including Crusade.

  * Lyta Alexander: Raised in the Corps, in the same elite Cadre Prime as Bester. At the time of the pilot, she's thirty one by normal age reckoning (thirty-two in telepath reckoning). **_Never married. No children._**


  * Talia Winters: Raised in the Corps. At the time of the pilot, she's twenty six by normal age reckoning. **_Possibly had an arranged marriage - canon is unclear (and the only source here is the problematic episode "Soul Mates"). She and her husband did know each other, and were close, when the topic of marriage came up. Annulled. Never remarried. No children._**


  * Byron Gordon: Raised as a normal (inference). Age not specified, but he's somewhere in his 30s. **_Never married. No children._**


  * John Matheson: Raised as a normal. Age not specified, but he's in his 30s at the time of Crusade. **_Never married. No children._**


  * Al Bester. Raised in the Corps, in the elite Cadre Prime. At the time of the pilot, he's sixty-seven years old by normal age reckoning. He got engaged to his first girlfriend at nineteen, but they never married (Long Story). When he was about thirty-three, and struggling emotionally, the Corps suggested a possible marriage to Alisha Ross, then twenty-four. (Bester's colleague says of her, when raising the subject: "She agreed, in principle, to consider a match.") _**They met, liked each other, and after a short courtship, chose to marry**_ \- but within a year, he caught her cheating on him with her ex-boyfriend, and she and Bester separated. Though publicly they say her son is his, he is not. He and Alisha, though legally still married at the time of the pilot, have had no contact since 2223 - **_thirty-three years_**. Neither sought to marry anyone else.



That's two out of five. _And no one was ever forced to marry._

The larger issue is that for reasons I will detail in another essay, the Corps often **_prohibits_** people who want to marry from doing so. The show never tells you about that.

Arranged marriages are _suggestions_ : If two people are close, and would also be close genetic matches, the Corps might suggest they consider marriage. (This is what happened to Talia. After their marriage, he turned out to be emotionally abusive, and she quickly got out.) The Corps also looks after telepaths and their well-being - if the Corps sees someone is lonely or could benefit from the emotional support of a spouse, they might suggest that person meet potential partners they've selected. (This is what happened to Bester. Sadly, Alisha was unfaithful - and though she subsequently swore to leave her lover and stay with him, he wanted out.)

And before you all start asking me about "genetic breeding," guess how many of the five recurring telepath characters have children that are genetically theirs?

**NONE.**

And that includes two Psi Cops, and at least three telepaths raised in the Corps.

(Bester came the closest - he was lovers with Caroline, a telepath who _wasn't in the Corps_. At the time of her death, she was pregnant with his child.)

So: "The Corps breeds you like puppies?"

**Oh, sure they do! That's why none of these supposedly representative telepaths have children, even through IVF!**

The truth is that dating, courtship and marriage practices are _different_ in the Corps than among normals, and I will get into all that, but that doesn't make it  _bad_ (even if we meet two telepaths whose marriages didn't work out... along with some normals whose relationships  _also_ didn't work out).

Canon's presentation of life in the Corps as being "forced marriages and forced breeding" is **false**.


End file.
